


I left my heart in the sands of Kadara

by kinpika



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Break Up, Canon Era, F/M, Spoilers, but still, i mean not rly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-13
Updated: 2017-05-13
Packaged: 2018-10-31 07:07:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10894254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kinpika/pseuds/kinpika
Summary: He waves goodbye, and it's just for show. His eyes say everything as the Collective take off, whisking their Charlatan away - for good? she could not say. Doesn't know if she will ever be able to.





	I left my heart in the sands of Kadara

Impulsive. That was how Lexi described her, and well, she wasn’t _wrong_.

Sara jumps, thoughts at least two steps behind her body, when she slams into Sloane’s side, bringing her down to the ground. Up and down, she swears that she felt the heat of the bullet zip past her head. Sloane is quick to recover, quick to sit up and _shoot_ , shoot back as there’s another bullet that just barely misses the both of them.

Despite being face down on the rocks, and arm still on Sloane, she can hear the sudden shouts. Almost as if there had been more Collective members in the area than just Reyes and his sniper. But then she hears it. His cry of pain as Sloane’s shot catches him in the hand and—

“Shit!”

Blood. Sitting up, Sara can see the blood between his fingers and the way he cradles it against his chest. Sloane doesn’t hesitate and — _god_ — Sara wishes she could commit just as much. I’m sorry, she thinks, as she watches Reyes’ eyes widen and oh, if that wave of apologetic nausea wasn’t anything to go by too. But she has to kick herself into gear when Sloane practically hauls her to her feet and throws her after Reyes. _Get him!_

Always was a quick and slippery bastard, even on the better days. _The better days_. As Sara pulls her gun free of its holster, raising the weapon, those better days are already gone, so far gone in the back of her mind. Time slows then, as she looks down the barrel, knowing it would be so easy to get him in the leg. Stop him (make him _explain_ ).

Explain _what_ , exactly, she has to ask herself. I’m a killer too.

Her shot misses Reyes entirely, hits some goddamn rock next to his feet, and it’s a warning shot with none of the heat behind it. Sara lets her arm fall to her side, as he’s pulled onto a ship — conveniently waiting, warmed, a ‘just in case’ because he’s full of that — and the bastard turns.

Smiles.

Waves.

Sara wishes she shot him in the back. Used. That’s how she would describe herself then. But there’s not space big enough in the universe left for her to dwell on it, when Sloane is up at her shoulder, yelling, pointing. “What the _fuck_ was that?!” Demands. Always with the demands.

People were demanding far too much shit and Sara just. She _just_. Her hand closes on the front of Sloane’s jacket, pulling her in. “You won, and now _I_ win, got it?” And whilst her voice doesn’t waver, her fingers don’t shake, Sara is _just_ barely holding herself together as she stares down Sloane goddamn Kelly, new ruler of Kadara Port, another user and abuser of the human Pathfinder. 

Sloane’s hand is on her wrist, enough of a threat to finally have Sara let go. Not without a lingering warning between the both of them but — _but_ — Sara wins. Sara has won and she has her outpost and Sloane’s tenuous friendship and there’s a bullet shaped hole in a rock she kicks over the edge of the cliff. Sara doesn’t watch it fall, doesn’t wait for the drop that she probably wouldn’t be able to hear, anyway. It’s the beginning of the end and she had never considered herself much of a poet, but there went her fucking heart. 

 

**We’re going to get him, Ryder.**

 

If she thought about it, long and hard, Sara knew that something had left a bad taste in her mouth. And it hadn’t been the six-hundred year old whiskey, nor the searing kisses after undermining Outcast operations, or even shared food when Reyes had decided to join them in a campout at a makeshift base for a night. Nothing had ever felt just quite _right,_ and it took her a longer time than she wanted to stop covering that up and realise. 

Report writing meant she had to go through details with a fine toothed comb, and pick on each and every hint as to _why_ it felt so right but so damn wrong. Maybe she should’ve been keeping a diary, so she knew exactly when the little sirens in her head started going off, and when she decided to put earphones in to drown out the sound ( _dear diary, today I met a man who touched all the right places, but said all the wrong things_ ).

The convenience of it all was what hit her first. Fingers tap over keys, slow strokes, words piling up that don’t honestly make a lot of sense. Did Evfra know? _Did Jaal know?_ Surely, someone somewhere had to _know_. After all, the Angara were the one who pointed her in the direction of him in the first place. ‘Talk to our contact’. ‘Get our criminal out of Sloane Kelly’s hands’. Well, Sara had to hope that goddamn traitor was going to enjoy planting flowers for the rest of his life, while she was stuck trying to explain to Nexus bigwigs that

_That_

She had fallen in love, just a little bit.

Just enough to open herself up, expose enough wires and worries and concerns to make herself vulnerable. The first thing she had asked Cora once walking back aboard the Tempest was ‘do I look like a _fool_?’ Cora didn’t respond, and Sara didn’t push. It may have been for the better of them both if Cora never said anything, anyway. She honestly wasn’t sure what she would do if people told her that _yes_ , she was a fool to believe him. 

Fingers stop. No, she didn’t always believe him. Only when it was convenient to them both. Reyes was a dodging around questions, half-answers kind of guy anyway. Honest about that. Honest about a lot of things, but not enough.

Why was she mad? Upset? Hurt? Why did it hurt when he told her — he goddamn fucking _told her_ — that he was a liar. Was it because he shot at her? No, that wasn’t him. The Collective, that was who was spraying bullets when she gave chase. Same with the torture, and the mess and the blood and the buildings and the mushrooms even growing in the back of some cave—

 **Backspace**. Don’t want Tann to get any ideas. Collective could kiss her team’s collective asses if they even considered coming after the Nexus with that. Tann was already losing his shit when Sara reported ‘Sloane Kelly, alive, in charge, gets a cut of profits’. No need for him to send her after the Collective to find some dangerous mushrooms. This sure as hell wasn’t turning out like a storybook with some moral at the end, and Sara didn’t really feel like trying to make it into one any further, anyway.

Running a hand through her hair, Sara pulls at knots, can feel the dust of Kadara still settled there like it found a new home. Firmly ingrained in her, to always remind her of could haves and what might’ve beens. No other world, no other _universe_ , had prepared her for this. There was no manual out there, no goddamn ancient space god to tell her that she was quite literally flirting with death, and that she should be thankful she made it out alive. If she had ever wanted an ancestor to appear between the clouds and tell her to _not_ , taking that first offered drink would’ve been the perfect moment.

“Pathfinder, Director Tann is awaiting a call from the vidcomm.”

“Of course he is.” 

And as Sara pushes away from the desk, a slow hike towards her doom, she remembers one offhanded comment, that has her pause:

_‘If I didn’t know any better, I’d say the boss had a soft spot for you’_

Oh. And then Sara realises that she knew. Knew from the very beginning, she just didn’t want to put two and two together. Sara Ryder does not cry, but she does not hit the lock on her door. SAM chimes in, reminding her gently that the Nexus wants to hear from her — her own spoken words — of what really happened in that little cave. 

“SAM?”

“Pathfinder?”

“Delete the report. Tell Tann I’m on my way.”

“Of course, Pathfinder.”

 

 

Sara didn’t want to find him, because she didn’t know want to know what she would find.

**Author's Note:**

> ppl were like "i thought they were gonna break up in your other reyder fic" and its like nah  
> this one. 
> 
> tbh i wasn't that broken up when it was revealed bc lmao it was so obvious rly. esp w the dialogue from collective npcs (that one asari in draullir RLY gave it away) and just... i didn't get why ryder was so upset (esp romance-wise?). ppl say that they were lied to but honestly? nah. omission of truth wasn't rly it, either. anyway. that kinda broke my immersion for me a little bit up until that point but SHRUGS. 
> 
> reyes will come back in a dlc for sure. or plot relevant in the next game u kno it


End file.
